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Transformation Garden is a worldwide Christian ministry dedicated to encouraging and empowering women in their daily walk with Jesus. The devotional thoughts presented in Transformation Garden have their foundation in the Bible – the inspired word of God.

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Transformation Garden - Jan. 24, 2013

“And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he (David) called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved him.”
I Samuel 12: 24
King James Version

EXPLORATION:

“Bathsheba: Comforted At Last”

“God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters.”
J. H. Jowett

Has there been a time in my life when I have been comforted?

How did the comfort from God or from others in my life affect me?

Have I “passed on” the compassion and comfort I have received?

“To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.”
Abraham Lincoln

INSPIRATION:

“Though bowed,
You are not broken.
Though stretched,
You’re strong, my friend.
You are resilient like a willow
You’ll find your spring again.
Though your branches
Now weigh heavy,
Your roots go deep and true.
This is just a change of season
God has better plans for you.”

Sharon Hudnell

Several weeks ago, Jim and I were talking about the weather we have been having in Arizona. The very hot temperature here really began last April and as recently as the first of October, it was still close to 100º some places in the state. Frankly, we had enough of the hot weather. And then, suddenly, without warning, I awoke last Saturday morning at 5:30 A.M. to find one-and-a-half inches of snow covering the foliage in our yard. It was gorgeous and truly a welcome relief.

A change of season. All of a sudden it isn’t hot anymore. There’s a chill in the air. A crisp nip that invigorates me.

This change – a relief I call it – doesn’t just happen in our weather. It occurs in our lives, too. We can be living in a drought-filled season where everything seems to be as parched as the Sahara Desert and then, seemingly without any notice, a gush of blessings come down upon us and we say, “Where did this come from?”

In our text today, we find that from the lust-filled David we met in II Samuel 11: 2, a changed man appears in II Samuel 12: 24. The David who “sent” for Bathsheba and then had her husband, Uriah, murdered to cover his affair, through the transformative power of God’s purifying love, became a gentle-hearted “comforter.” The comfort he had received from his forgiving heavenly Father, became the comfort he passed on. In fact, in reviewing the study text for today, I found that the primary root word for “comforted” in II Samuel 2: 24 is “naw kham,” which means, “to sigh or to breathe strongly, by implication to be sorry, to repent and to console.”

You see, David repented to God for the error of his ways, but there was also someone else to whom he needed to repent or say “I’m sorry.” And after the call to repentance by the prophet Nathan, David not only went to his Father with a humble heart and sorrowful voice, but also made amends with Bathsheba.

As the Bible tells us, a renewed intimacy was restored between this husband and wife. The love David showed to Bathsheba was not based on some lustful longing but instead on the gift of comfort – the repentance God had bestowed upon his life now became the foundation for a union between Bathsheba and David which was consummated with heaven’s blessing and brought about the conception of the life of a son who was called Solomon or as some scholars believe, “peaceable.” Without the turmoil associated with the conception and birth of their first child, peace between Bathsheba and David resulted in a child that Nathan the prophet called “Jedidiah” or “beloved of Jehovah.” As the Bible states in II Samuel 12:24, this child was the outgrowth of the comfort David had for Bathsheba, his wife.

As we think of the healing comfort of heaven, that like a restorative balm renewed the relationship between David and Bathsheba, this reminded me of the beautiful words of the Apostle Paul to his Christian friends in Corinth in II Corinthians 1: 3,4 when he reminded them, as The Message Bible so distinctly portrays, that our God supplies us with “healing counsel.” However, we are given this “counsel” for a specific reason. Paul tells us: “(God) comes alongside us when we go through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.”

This is a passing along kind of comfort. We become conduits or pipelines of love and kindness and comfort to those around us who are aching.

I love the words of Sophy Burnham who describes comforting behavior in this way: “Sometimes the angel appears in the form of a friend who says exactly the words we need to hear that day. Or you will unwillingly act as an angel to someone else, tossing off a message so casually that, though it saves another person’s life, you hardly remember the moment at all.”

And maybe, just maybe, the comfort which you have received as you review your life, when passed on, will be God’s catalyst which changes the season in another person’s life from winter to spring.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
II Corinthians 1: 3,4
N.I.V.

AFFIRMATION:

“Lord of the Universe
look in love upon your people.
Pour the healing oil of your compassion
on a world that is wounded and dying.
Send us out in search of the lost,
to comfort the afflicted,
to bind up the broken,
and to free those trapped
under the rubble of their fallen dreams.”
Sheila Cassidy

P.S. Just to let you know, Transformation Garden is now on FACEBOOK. Please come and see us and share the garden with your friends. The Daily Devotional is posted everyday, Monday through Friday on Facebook, too.

My book, When A Woman Meets Jesus, is available wherever books are sold and on the internet at www.amazon.com, and www.Christianbook.com, or by calling toll-free, 1-800-Christian. You may also call Transformation Garden at 480-281-1508.

About Transformation Garden

Transformation Garden is a worldwide Christian ministry dedicated to encouraging and empowering women in their daily walk with Jesus. The devotional thoughts presented in Transformation Garden have their foundation in the Bible – the inspired word of God.